Which weston master

An advertisement in Amateur Photographer indicates or earlier. The Weston Master Cine meters have a dial assembly adapted for use with cine cameras of the time. They use a simplified 'Relative Brightness' scale. Weston Master Model Leicameter. The last of four models of Weston exposure meter made dedicated to the Leica 35mm camera, and the only one in the 'Master' family. It operates in the same manner as the others save that the film speeds are in Weston ratings and there are two reference pointers for the different baffle positions.

Very rare. Though retaining the meter face and dial arrangement of the original 'Universal', the post-war model was significantly more compact and metal, rather than bakelite cased. Made in Britain from USA model also made in dark grey finish. Styling is more rounded than in the earlier model. This model of cine exposure meter is derived from the Master II Universal Rounded compact shape, steel cased and available in dark matt grey as well as glossy black.

Dial legend variations. Continuing to use the Relative Brightness scale. Essentially the same physical model as the Master II but calibrated for the A. Also includes dial settings for Exposure Values EV. American model has striking brushed steel finish. UK model is gloss black with white meter face - redressed dial face. Also rare red dial variant.

The last 'Master' to be made specifically for Cine use, and only in the UK. Derived from the model III universal. As with other Cine variants, the scale reads in units of relative brightness and the dial incorporates frames per second in place of shutter speeds.

Made in UK only, this major modern compact redesign is squared off at the top. An aluminium top shell is mounted on a black plastic chassis. Has the black meter face and US model number designation instead of S'. Has a needle lock making incident light reading easier. It is particularly known for the Weston Master series of selenium meters. Weston was founded by chemist Edward Weston—no relation to the famous photographer—who held many patents for electrical inventions, from permanent magnets through cellulose manufacturing, dynamos, arc and filament lights and the magnetic-drag speedometer to electrical measurement instruments and even US - a fruit box!

Sangamo was originally "Sangamo Electric Co. It set up a British subsidiary in Sangamo acquired the Weston Electrical Instrument Co. Since Weston was one of the first makers of light meters, before film speeds were standardised, Weston had its own film speed scales. At some point, Weston products were distributed by Ilford in the UK.

The company was bought out by Schlumberger in , but still exists , making electrical timers. This is the first real redesign since the original Master II fifteen-years earlier. The case was two piece, black on the rear and chrome on the front.

The calculator dial is a littlle larger and extends out to the edge of the case, whereas the earlier Masters had the dial sunk within the case. There are several other major differences here. The rear cell and baffle are slightly different and the accessory Invercone for incident light metering had to be changed.

On the side, this meter introduced a needle lock in the form of a slide switch. A spring-loaded bar normally holds the needle in place. The slide switch presses a button which lifts the bar and allows the needle to swing freely. The biggest difference is right up front: the calculator dial got a major makeover.

A little button rotates the center dial to set the E. EV has been retained but the Polaroid system has been dropped. The whole dial has been redesigned, the numbers are larger and easier to read. Fractions are black and white, full-seconds are white and red. It's my favorite calculator dial of the bunch.

This is another unit with a very short production run, for reasons I don't understand. Regardless, the next and final member of the dynasty took its place.

On many other products this would be considered a minor tweaking, but for Weston Masters it was huge. Among the changes: the black non-chromed case is now gray. The pointer lock slide-switch became an intermittent button switch, probably because people were leaving the meter lock off with the slider.

Now the pointer only swings free when the button is pressed, though it can be given a half-turn and locked. Even though the meter is still designed to be held along its edge with the index finger resting on the meter lock button if you're right-handed , the meter scale numbers are finally rotated so that the meter is normally read in an upright position. They do this by dropping the light-level scale and going with the log "light value" scale, similar to what they were using on their earlier cine models.

But again, the biggest change is in the calculator dial itself. First, the E. More importantly, the dial face is no longer black, it's bare metal with the information printed in black, or white with a black background, or in red. Personally I find it harder to read than the Master IV dial, but others may disagree. This was the last of the dynasty, as far as I'm concerned.

To continue the royal lineage metaphor, I think the Euro-Masters are the Rudolph Rassendylls—look-alike cousins to the prisoner of Newark. It's hard to say, since Weston is another one of those companies that's not well publicly documented. One account I read suggested that Daystrom , Weston 's owner, had big things planned for the company; but they were in turn acquired by Schlumberger , which didn't see a compelling business case for continuing in the consumer photo market.

The other thing was that the market for meters changed. In Weston 's heyday hand-held meters were a standard accessory. But by the s, cameras—even the low-end models—typically came with meters integrated into them. Even though the prevailing wisdom was to keep a hand-held meter as a backup or sanity check to the camera meter, the market for hand-helds shrunk considerably.

Add to this the growing dominance of Japanese meters in all levels of performance, and Weston found it increasingly difficult to compete. It probably should have been obvious with the Master IV that something was up.

Weston 's subsequent meters were all branded imports, either from its sister Sangamo factory in England or from Sekonic in Japan. Other American companies were having similar problems. Norwood 's Director and Super Director both went Japanese. Argus bought its meters from East Germany. General Electric bailed out entirely. It's hard to place this relationship of this unit with the others. Weston branded a series of Japanese-built meters in the s.

Sekonic made a huge number of meters of all kinds, from high-end professional stuff to super-simple point-it-and-read-it jobs.

The problem was that, at least with these late Westons , they looked cheap. The cases were plastic. The whole visual design is blah. He may have royal blood, but he never sat on the throne. This is another tough call. Personally I would consider this the king's younger brother.